On Monday April 4 2005 triple j welcomed a brand new announcer to lunchtimes. Her name was Zan Rowe.

Following after Myf Warhurst, Zan’s now close friend and former podcast partner, she wouldn’t have known then her role in supporting Australian music, new music discovery or the influence of her own podcast and program Take 5 with Zan Rowe in gifting us access to the private lives and thoughts of artists and stars both international and from home.

Take 5 started as a radio program, became a podcast in 2017 and then an ABC TV program in 2022.

Zan, or Susanna Rowe as she is probably only known to her family, started in radio at community station SRA FM (now SYN Radio) in 1996. After joining triple j she moved onto mornings in 2006, and remained there for 12 years. At the end of 2017 she announced a move to the ABC‘s digital station Double J, again on mornings, which she hosts to this day.

Zan is an Industry Adjunct Associate Professor at RMIT. Ahead of the latest season of Take 5, Bernard Fanning described her as ‘our beloved 21st Century Molly Meldrum’. There can be no greater compliment.

Dr Karl Kruszelnicki and Zan, from Facebook.